<b>Dorothy Sloan Books Dec. 15 & 16:</b> UNITED STATES AND MEXICAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. EMORY, William Hemsley. <i>Report of the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, Made under the Direction of the Secretary of the Interior…</i><br>$3,000-6,000

<b>Dorothy Sloan Books Dec. 15 & 16:</b> RICHARDSON, William H. <i>Journal of William H. Richardson, a Private Soldier in the Campaign of New and Old Mexico…</i>. Baltimore: John H. Woods, 1848. $3,000-6,000

<b>Dorothy Sloan Books Dec. 15 & 16:</b> EMORY, William Hemsley. <i>Map of Texas and the Countries Adjacent: Compiled in the Bureau of the Corps of Topographical Engineers; From the Best Authorities…</i> [Washington, 1844]. $7,500-15,000

<b>Dorothy Sloan Books Dec. 15 & 16:</b> THORPE, Thomas Bangs. <i>Our Army at Monterey. Being a Correct Account of the Proceedings and Events which Occurred to the “Army of Occupation”…</i> Philadelphia, 1847. $400-800

<b>Dorothy Sloan Books Dec. 15 & 16:</b> TILDEN, Bryant Parrott, Jr. <i>Notes on the Upper Rio Grande, Explored in the Months of October and November, 1846, on Board the U.S. Steamer Major Brown…</i> Philadelphia, 1847.<br>$5,000-10,000

<b>Dorothy Sloan Books Dec. 15 & 16:</b> [WORTH, WILLIAM J.]. <i>Life of General Worth; To Which is Added a Sketch of the Life of Brigadier-General Wool.</i> New York: Nafis & Cornish; St. Louis, Mo.: Nafis, Cornish & Co., 1847.<br>$200-400

<b>19th Century Shop.</b> CURTIS, EDWARD. <i>Original glass plate photograph, Honovi – Walpi Snake Priest, prepared by Curtis for the printing of The North American Indian</i>, c.1910

<b>19th Century Shop.</b> (AMERICAN WEST.), Watkins, Taber, Savage, and others. <i>Magnificent Album of Mammoth Photographs of the American West, with other subjects various</i>, ca. 1865-1880s

Rare Book Monthly

It sometimes comes to this

- by Bruce E. McKinney

A bookshop is the outcome of a million decisions. To open a shop and then what to sell are the early decisions that seamlessly lead to the turning on of the electricity, to the buying of shelves and a cash register. Signs are then posted or painted onto the windows, and if the zoning permits, perhaps something larger and possibly gaudier appended on the outside to attract the passersby. And then there are the decisions that will regulate and determine the everyday throb of the business. Will we be open from 10 am to 10 pm 7 days or perhaps 9 am to 5 pm 5 days? And what books will we put on the shelves?

The decisions about inventory will be crucial and success for a time, even decades, mask the small failures. Some books will be plucked from their just-arrived boxes to be handed to customers waiting for them. Others that sounded good in their descriptions, will slip onto shelves and over the decades make the painful trip from “just arrived” to “half price” to “make me an offer” and still never leave the building.

Bookshops in time change hands and when they do the person or persons buying will often share many of the characteristics that the buyers had a generation or two earlier. They are both part of the continuum of believers who, for the past five hundred years, have shared an absolute conviction in the power of the printed word. The notion that the transfer of ideas via the printed word might atrophy and decline or be transformed does not get a complete hearing in their court.

But ultimately it is public opinion and public preference that will determine, for the number of the younger willing to embrace the methodology of the older is itself declining - leading in some cases to the outright sale at auction of the residue of such shops that have not otherwise been transferred. We have seen this elsewhere and the outcomes are never pretty. The inventory that was always going to be the “retirement money” turns out to be the antibiotics whose expiry date is long past. Or so it seems.

On the 12th Bruun Rasmussen will offer at auction the entire remaining contents as a single lot of a shop at Studiestraede 10, Copenhagen. The shop contains 20,000 to 25,000 books, most in Danish, of literature and sundry related subjects. The retail prices of the inventory approach US$540,000 but as a single lot the auction estimate is US$18,000 to $27,000.

In the years ahead there will be many such sales and they will mark the nadir of the field. And at the same time many dealers will avoid these late career disasters by thinning weak selections from their inventory as they go and buying increasingly carefully going forward. As a result they will not be left with huge amounts of inventory to be sold for pennies because they discounted along the way. Nevertheless, such outright sales will for a time be almost common.

Whether as a bystander or a bidder such events as this auction are important for they recalibrate our hopes and aspirations. We'll be hoping for the best.

Inventory management has always been extremely important in any retail business, bookstores are no exception to the rule. What I am amazed at is the prices paid at an auction on July 31, 2014, in some cases far above retail store prices or many copies available online.

<b>Seth Kaller:</b> Einstein Agrees to Allow “a Short Book on the Hydrogen Bomb” to Use His Statement Made on Eleanor Roosevelt’s TV Show

<b>Seth Kaller:</b> The Building Blocks of Albert Einstein’s Creative Mind

<b>Seth Kaller:</b> A Unique Manuscript Map of Block Island Sound Including Fisher’s and Gardiner’s Islands, the Hamptons, and Montauk Point

<b>Seth Kaller:</b> J.R.R. Tolkien Writes his Proofreader with a Lengthy Discussion of the Lord of the Rings, Including Criticism of Radio Broadcasts of his Work

<b>Seth Kaller:</b> Six Benjamin Franklin Signed Receipts – Including his Earliest Obtainable Autograph — Acknowledging a Donation to the Famous Library Company He Founded, and Five Payments for His Pennsylvania Gazette

<b>Bonhams Dec. 7:</b> DARWIN, CHARLES. <i>On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life</i>. London: John Murray, 1859. $25,000 – 35,000